The two consecutive years of record catches are inextricably linked to a controversial decision made in 2024 by the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), the intergovernmental body responsible for managing the fishery, to allow restrictions that for the previous 16 years had required the krill catch to be spread across larger areas to prevent fishing pressure from becoming too concentrated.

Now, industrial supertrawlers are concentrating their fishing effort in ecological hotspots where both krill and foraging wildlife gather in greatest numbers. Last year, according to a CCAMLR report reviewed by the Associated Press, fishing pressure in one hotspot was nearly 60% higher than in previous years.

For the past four years, Sea Shepherd has been shadowing the fleet of supertrawlers as they extract krill from the traditional feeding grounds of fin and humpback whales, whose primary food source is krill, to produce omega-3 health supplements for which plant-based alternatives are readily available.

The “Sustainability” Argument Doesn’t Hold Up

The krill fishery has long claimed that its operations are “sustainable,” pointing to an estimated krill biomass of 63 million tonnes in Area 48 and arguing that the 620,000-tonne catch limit is meant to represent “just” 1% of that biomass.

But that argument ignores two fundamental realities.

Firstly, the Antarctic ecosystem of today is not one in which whale populations have fully recovered from the devastating impact of commercial whaling. While some humpback populations have rebounded remarkably since the global moratorium on commercial whaling came into effect in 1986, Antarctic blue and fin whales remain far below their pre-whaling abundance. As those populations recover, their demand for krill will grow, at the same time as the industrial krill fleet continues to expand.

When whale populations in just the Southwest Atlantic sector of Antarctica return to pre-whaling numbers, their demand for krill could reach around 100 million tonnes annually, far beyond the estimated biomass currently available to them.

Secondly, the krill fishery does not spread its fishing effort evenly across Area 48, where the krill biomass is estimated at 63 million tonnes. For decades, fishing within this vast region has been overwhelmingly concentrated around the Antarctic Peninsula and South Orkney Islands.

Until the end of the 2024 fishing season, CCAMLR's spatial distribution measure prevented the fishery's 620,000-tonne catch trigger limit from becoming too heavily concentrated in any one location. Although 620,000 tonnes could be taken across Area 48, additional limits controlled how much could be taken from each of its four subareas.

When CCAMLR failed to renew that measure, the 620,000-tonne catch limit remained, but the safeguards governing how that catch was distributed disappeared.

The Consequences of Industrial Krill Extraction

Last season, the consequences were immediate. The fishery reached its 620,000-tonne catch limit well before the end of the season, because for the first time in 16 years, the entire fishing effort could be concentrated in much smaller areas where whales, penguins and seals gather to feed.

The supertrawlers target these areas for the same reason whales, penguins and seals do: they are where krill is most densely concentrated.

Thus, neither conservationists nor the fishing industry was surprised when the catch limit was reached early once again this year.

Now, the krill fishing industry is arguing for a near doubling of the trigger catch limit, pointing to the speed at which the existing limit is being reached.

But the fishery is not closing early because there is an overabundance of krill. It is closing early because a growing fleet of increasingly efficient supertrawlers is extracting krill faster than ever before, while concentrating that catch in smaller, more ecologically sensitive areas that are critical feeding grounds for whales. 

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